“He Was the Master of Everything”
Before he was on the U.S. Team at the FEI World Championships and competed at the Olympics, Boyd Martin got his start on a Welsh pony named Willy.
By Glenye Oakford
3 Minute Read
Before he was on the U.S. Team at the FEI World Championships and competed at the Olympics, Boyd Martin got his start on a Welsh pony named Willy, short for Will He Do It, that his family saw advertised for sale on a bulletin at a three-day event. Willy would prove life-changing for the then 12-year-old boy growing up in Australia.
“My mum and sister rode a lot, and I didn’t ride much,” Martin recalled. “He was for sale for Aus$1,200, and that was a fair amount in Australia. I tried him. I hopped on him, went straight to canter, and did one big lap around a grass field. I came back and said to my mum and dad, ‘We’ll take him!’ And that’s how I ended up with Will He Do It. My mum and dad both chipped in to buy him.”
Willy took Martin everywhere, and along the way Martin developed not only his riding skills, but also his love of equestrian sport and horsemanship. It wasn’t so much about the competition, Martin explained. It was about the horses.
"I wasn’t that competitive, but I had a really good time with the horses and really loved working with them."
Boyd Martin
“He was a master of everything: Pony Club, eventing, show jumping,” Martin recalled. “Didn’t care much for the dressage. I wasn’t that competitive, but I had a really good time with the horses and really loved working with them. As soon as we got off the school bus every afternoon, I’d run down the hill, throw his saddle on, and go racing around the national parks. It took an hour and a half to get to Pony Club, and then I rode him all day, and I then rode for an hour-and-a-half home again, every Sunday.”
Martin might not have been competitive, but he was having fun — and at least part of Martin and Willy’s fun together is memorialized in a video that the young Martin and a pal made a couple of decades ago.
“My first one-day event was at St. Ives showgrounds in Australia, just down the road from home,” Martin said. “We put Willy on the two-horse [trailer], towed him there in the four-wheel drive, and tied him up at the trailer next to a big hay bag. I did dressage, and then on cross-country I fell off twice. The first time, he spun around and I fell off him. I had to take off after him on foot, and I found him munching hay next to the trailer. I got on him again and galloped back onto the course.
“I got all the way to the water jump,” he continued. “I galloped really fast at it, and Willy put on the brakes. I flew over his head and ended up in the water. Again, Willy took off to the trailer, so I took off on foot again and found him there eating his hay. I hopped back on him and finished the course.
“But then I fell off in the show jumping at a combination. I got back on and finished that, too. So I fell off a total of three times in my first event, and I remember I clocked up a penalty score of something like 380. I got 60 penalties per fall, and obviously tons of time penalties!
“But I still had a good time and enjoyed every minute of it.”
Disclaimer: This story was originally published in the Summer 2017 issue of Equestrian magazine. Images depicted here may include tack or equipment that are not permitted under current USEF rules.
Photos: Boyd Martin, Mike McNally